With Jared Kushner in the White House, Americans Have No Need to Invest in Emerging Markets

Generally, emerging market investing gives American investors (or Western European investors) the opportunity to achieve higher returns on their investment in return for the increased risk associated with a system involving a certain undefined amount of corruption and nepotism.

The US, by contrast, is considered to be a law-based state, where a strict set of well defined rules and regulations create a level playing field that gives investors greater certainty associated with a fully developed and fair system of government.

Per the New York Times today, it is clear that Jared Kushner’s position in the White House has now completed the U.S.’s conversion from a law-based state to one based on favors and bribery that Americans have ordinarily assumed to exist only on foreign shores.

We knew earlier this week that Mexico, China, Israel and the UAE were trying to exert influence over Kushner and his family through negotiating loans related to his family’s highly indebted 666 5th Avenue property. That revelation, of course, was extraordinary on multiple levels, even under the circumstances that we have grown to expect in the Trump White House.

However, much more extraordinary is the reality that Citibank, one of the US’s largest banks, and Apollo, one of our largest private equity firms, were making loans of $325 million and $184 million, respectively, for properties in Kushner’s portfolio in 2017. These loans were made immediately after their senior executives held official meetings with Kushner in the White House.

Go ahead and sell all of your emerging markets portfolio. You get your Third World exposure with your U.S. investments now.

Ari Socolow: Ari Socolow is the Chief Economist and Editor-in-Chief at BestCashCow. He is particularly interested in issues relating to financial literacy and bank transparency. Since co-founding this website in 2005, Ari has been frequently cited in the media as an expert on local and national savings accounts, CD products, mortgage and loan products and credit card rewards products.
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